The United States of America is in need of alternative fuel sources for use in engines and motors. Presently, the US is dependent on the oil industry for combustible fuel to run in internal combustion engines. Alternative sources that have been explored are: fuel cells, solar power, battery, and alternative combustible fuels (i.e., vegetable oils, hydrogen, diesel, etc.). Nuclear power has only been explored in large power generating installations because of public safety issues and the size of the structure.
Even the current state of batteries is in need of change. Electronic devices are consuming more and more electrical power. According to Steve Morgenstern (see, Got Juice?, Popular Science, October 2004, p. 61), “We're entering a period when battery capacity, not computing power, is steering product innovation.” In the same article Steve quotes Bill Mitchell of Microsoft as saying: “It certainly does seem like something akin to the kind of crisis we experienced during the '70s, when we had all these fuel shortages and lines at the pump . . . and we're not sure how it's going to be solved.” The best battery technology today is Lithium-ion polymer, which packs the highest density and can be molded for a particular use.
However, there are not many scientists out there figuring out alternatives to the battery. Again, according to Steve, “[t]he best option for dramatic improvements, in fact, seems to be going with technology that's been around for 50 years: fuel cells.” In fact, this technology was a key point in the President Bush's 2004 State of the Union address. He wants to support this technology to reduce the US dependency on foreign oil.
Numerous other engine technologies exist, some of which have existed for some time. The following is a discussion of these technologies and some inherent limitations.
Stirling Engine
A Stirling engine is a thermo-differential engine that gets power from the expansion of heated gas and the contraction of cooled gas. The Stirling engine was invented in 1816 by Rev. Robert Stirling of Scotland. Stirling engines were an alternative to steam at the time and were considered safe because of the lack of a boiler. Stirling engines had many applications including fans, water pumps, and outboard motors. A Stirling engine can run on any external source of heat (direct heat, solar, or geothermal).
The Stirling engine is a completely closed system including a cylinder, with a piston and displacer, in which an enclosed, working gas is usually air, but has also been helium or hydrogen. A connecting rod connects the displacer to a crankshaft via a flywheel. With reference now to FIG. 1, shown is flow diagram illustrating a Stirling engine cycle. As shown, the cycle alternately heats and cools the shifting gas to different thermo locations within the Stirling engine. The cycle includes four phases. The four phases of a Stirling engine are similar to the Otto cycle, which is discussed further on. The four phases are:
Expansion: the gas in the cylinder has been pushed to the hot end of the cylinder. The gas is heated by 1) external heat source heating the cylinder wall, and 2) the compression of the gas, thereby driving the displacer and piston away.
Transfer: with the gas expanded and the most of it in the hot end of the cylinder, the momentum of the flywheel carries the crankshaft the next quarter turn along with both pistons. The bulk of the gas is transferred around the displacer and between the displacer and the piston, or the cool end of the cylinder.
Contraction: with the majority of the expanded gas in the cool end, it contracts drawing the piston into the displacer (slight vacuum).
Transfer: the contracted, or cooled gas is still located near the cool end of the cylinder. The flywheel momentum carries the crankshaft another quarter turn, moving the displacer and transferring the bulk of the gas back to the hot end of the cylinder, and repeating the cycle.
A beta configuration of the Stirling engine is a one cylinder system with a hot end and a cool end. With reference now to FIG. 2, shown is a single-cylinder Stirling engine. The working gas is transferred form one end of the cylinder to the other by a device called a displacer (floating piston). The displacer resembles a large piston, except that the displacer is intentionally made smaller in diameter than the cylinder. Thus, its motion does not change the volume of gas in the cylinder; it merely transfers the gas around the displacer in the cylinder.
An alpha configuration is a two-cylinder system, where one cylinder is kept hot while the other is kept cool, known as a Ross configuration. With reference now to FIG. 3, shown is Stirling engine with a Ross configuration (includes a Ross yoke). The flow linkage allows the engine to be more compact and reduces side loads on the pistons and connecting rods. The travel of the pistons is almost linear.
The limitation of the Stirling Engine is demonstrated by the fact that it requires two connections to the crankshaft. Therefore, an opposing cylinder Sterling engine would be very complex. Practical opposing engines have one connection to the crankshaft per cylinder. This type would include: Volkswagen or Subaru flat four engine, a Porsche flat six engine, or V-series engines such as the V-6, V-8 or V-10. Multiple cylinder Stirling designs have been built and demonstrated, much like the Ross yoke design. But, it should be noted that they are linear in layout, much like the in-line four or six cylinder internal engines. What is needed is a design that allows the Stirling engine to have separate heating and cooling areas, but does not require two separate links to the crankshaft.
Otto Cycle
Internal combustion engines operate using the Otto Cycles, which has four stages: compression, combustion, expansion, and exhaust. With reference to FIG. 4, shown is an Otto Cycle engine. The Otto Cycle stages include:
Compression (1): In preparation for adding heat to the air, the volume is compressed by moving the piston in the cylinder (Adiabatic). It is in this part of the cycle that the engine contributes work to the air. In the ideal Otto cycle, this compression is considered to be isentropic.
Combustion (2): heat is added to the air by fuel combustion when the piston is just past the dead center position. Combustion is not initiated until a spark (from a spark plug, for instance) is generated in the cylinder. Because the piston is essentially immobile during this part of the cycle, we say that the heat addition is isochoric, like the cooling process.
Expansion (3): fuel is burned to heat compressed air and the hot gas expands forcing the piston to travel in the cylinder. It is in this phase that the cycle contributes its useful work, rotating the automobile's crankshaft. The ideal assumption is that this stage is isentropic.
Exhaust (4): expanded air is cooled down to ambient conditions. In an actual automobile engine, this corresponds to exhausting the air from the engine to the environment and replacing it with fresh air. Since this happens when the piston is at the top dead center position in the cycle and is not moving, we say this process is isochoric (no change in volume).
The limitations of the internal combustion engine using the Otto Cycle include: environmental issues of pollution, foreign oil industry dependency, and the up and down motion of the pistons inherent in the design.
Wankel Engine
Ramelli first proposed a rotary engine in 1588, but it was not until the development of the Otto cycle engine in 1876 that the stage was set for a proper rotary combustion engine. Felix Wankel catalogued and organized 862 configurations, investigated 149, and prior to 1910 filed more than 2,000 patents for the rotary engine. The simplicity of design and the dramatic reduction of parts being the key winning factors. The rotary drive matched the rotary output.
With reference now to FIGS. 5A-5B, shown is a Wankel rotary combustion engine (“RCE”). The Wankel RCE is based on the Otto Cycle engine stages with four strokes or phases. The four phases are intake, compression, power, and exhaust. Like conventional piston engines the air must be constantly polluted (mixture with gas), ignited and exhausted, and then replaced by new air. Unlike conventional piston engines, the fuel air mixture is swept along, so the fourth phase takes place in different areas of the engines.
The rotor in a Wankel RCE supercedes the piston engine's reciprocating piston. The eccentric shaft in a Wankel RCE supercedes the piston engine's crankshaft and connecting rod; the peripheral housing of the Wankel RCE supercedes the piston engine's cylinder. The intake and exhaust ports of the Wankel RCE eliminate any values, camshafts, lift rods, and timing belts.
Quantum Nucleonic Reaction
A Nucleonic process is a two-step energy transfer process applied to a heat cycle, where electrical energy is first converted to a higher energy source in the form of X-rays. This type of technology is used everyday in the dentist office to create images of our mouths, or more specifically to find cavities in our teeth. The X-ray energy can also be used to create an even higher energy source in the form of Gamma rays. Both of these high-energy processes produce a large percentage of heat, which until now is considered waste energy to be dissipated away. In the process described below, the byproduct of generating the gamma rays is used to heat the volume within the cylinder, by directly adding energy to the contained gas, and/or indirectly heating the chamber walls which heats the contained gas.
The physics community has an interest in the 4- and 5-quasi-particle isomers of lutetium (Lu), hafnium (Hf) and tantalum (Ta), because they have relatively long half-lives, and high excitation energies. These long half-live are possible because rapid decay is inhibited by the structure of the atomic nuclei. Since rapid decay to a lower energy state is inhibited, these isomers have a relatively long half-life.
The University of Texas, Dallas, found that, in the late 1990s, the Hafnium isomer releases a burst of gamma rays that are ×60 more powerful than the initial X-rays used to exposed the hafnium isomer. It was also found that 90% of the energy released was in the form of waste heat. Hafinia is the Latin name for Copenhagen and is named for the city in which the discovery was made by D Coster and G von Hevesey in 1932. It is a ductile metal with a brilliant silver luster. It properties are influenced by the presence of zirconium impurities. Hafnium has been successfully alloyed with iron, titanium, niobium, and other metals. At 700° C. it rapidly absorbs hydrogen to form the composition of HfH1.86. At elevated temperatures it reacts with oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, boron, sulfur, and silicon. Halogens react directly to form tetrahalides. Finely divided hafnium is pyrophoric and can ignite spontaneously in air. The element is a good absorption cross-section for thermal neutrons (×600 Zi), but also has excellent mechanical properties: extremely corrosion-resistant. It is used for reactor control rods.
X-Rays
X-rays are photons of electromagnetic radiation having wavelengths in the range of 0.1 to 10 nm, between ultraviolet radiation and Gamma rays. An X-ray is capable of penetrating solids and therefore quite useful in the medical and dental profession in examining bones and other calcified minerals.
Common X-ray tube terminology includes discussions of                Focal Spot Size: the measurement of the resolution that is afforded by a particular x-ray tube. This beam coverage is the area covered by the x-ray beam when it gets to its intended target area and is contingent on the anode angle of the tube and distance from the target.        mAs: the amount of energy (amps) applied in seconds. Too much energy with a small focal spot can leave too much energy in the absorbing material or heat.        kVp: the measurement of the energy applied to the electrons that excited the cathode and anode, to generate the x-rays and heat. Too much energy here means too much heat must be dissipated from the target of the x-ray tube.        Duty Cycle: the measurement of how long each exposure will be, or how long between exposures is allowed for cooling.        
Gamma Rays
Gamma rays have the smallest wavelength (hi-freq ˜1019 Hz) and most energy of any photon wave in the electromagnetic spectrum. Gamma rays can kill living cells, a fact which medicine uses to its advantage in use against cancerous cells.
Gamma rays can be absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere or other tangible objects (i.e., metal, skin, water, etc.). These rays are the most energetic form of energy (light) and are produced by the hottest regions of the universe by violent events such as: supernovas, destruction of atoms, or the decay of radioactive material.
The effectiveness of gamma ray shielding is frequently describe in terms of the half value layer (HVL) or the tenth value layer (TVL). These are the thickness of an absorber that will reduce the gamma radiation to half, or a tenth of its intensity, respectively. Typical materials, from worst to best, include: air, water, earth, concrete, aluminum, iron, copper and lead. The values of HVL and TVL are presented as thickness of material (cm).
HVL is the amount of material that is required to reduce the intensity of an X-ray beam to half. For X-ray beams, this is normally expressed in aluminum or copper thickness, but can also be expressed in other materials or media, such as water. Strictly, the half value layer is defined for different quantities: photon fluence (number of photons/cm2), energy fluence (number of photons×photon energy/cm2) or absorbed dose. The term intensity is commonly used but is too vague and should therefore be avoided.
Due to the spectral nature of X-rays, the half-value layer (HVL) is not constant. When measuring multiple half-value layers, the second HVL is greater than the first. This is due to the fact that the mean energy of the X-ray spectrum is increased following passage of the first HVL, which results in the X-rays becoming more penetrating. The most effective gamma shields are materials, which have a high density and high atomic number, such as lead, tungsten, and uranium.